Luis G. Pedraja, Jesus is My Uncle: Christology from a Hispanic Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999).
Luis G. Pedraja’s Jesus is My Uncle invites readers to reexamine their Christology through the lens of Hispanic/Latin@ culture and tradition. The author does not challenge received, creedal Christology. In fact, he assumes it freely adopting Nicaean and Chalcedonian language. Instead, Pedraja emphasizes how the common experience of many Hispanics and Latin@s sheds light of “God in Christ” as a marginalized, impoverished man with no home of his own.
The title of the book comes from Pedraja’s experience growing up in a culture where unlike Anglo culture the name Jesus is given to children. This seems blasphemous to some, but according to Pedraja it allows Hispanics to see Jesus as someone near and dear like his uncle, rather than untouchable in the heavens.
Throughout the book the uniqueness of the Spanish language is discussed. Pedraja shows how Spanish encarnación (incarnation), carne (flesh), mulato and mestizo (people whose cultural identity is a mixture of cultures), and Verbo (Verb, used to translate logos in Jn 1:1) contain nuances that help one think about Christian theology from a slightly different angle. For example, encarnación carries the idea of “enfleshment” while “incarnation” can be misunderstood as merely dwelling “in” a body. In a culture where the meat has often been recently taken from a living animal rather than butchers and shipped to a sanitized store in plastic wrap the people are forced to think more about flesh, blood, and death. Also, in Jn 1:1 “Word” carries a different significance from Verbo which emphasizes action.
Hispanic/Latin@ culture is often a based on the boarder lands. Many Latino Americans are made to feel less American than their white counterparts, but since they are American they no longer identify as closely with Mexico, or Argentina, or any of the other countries from which they may have come. Many have roots in places like Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas that are far deeper than their white counterparts, yet they are made to feel as if this is not their “real” home. Pedraja uses the example of Jesus—one rejected by his own hometown, his own people—as a means for empowering Latinos. Similarly, Jesus’ poverty is an encouragement for the many Latinos who are impoverished and lack the privilege and opportunity more easily accessed by whites.
This book is a wonderful little gem that doesn’t deny the metaphysical aspect of Christology, but neither does it leave it there. The Incarnation is “God made flesh” and therefore for Hispanics/Latin@s the earthly and earthy career of Jesus is as important as his pre-existence or post-ascension existence. In the Incarnation deity and humanity are forever interlocked and therefore God is truly with us, especially the poor and marginalized as Jesus himself made known in his teachings and deeds.
Brian, given that early Roman emperors were ‘latin’ and early church fathers Spanish (Isidore of Seville, et al) is it reasonable to suggest that Hispanic/Latin culture has somehow not influenced theology? Or could it be that politics of modern America’s ethnic racism against Europe is playing a role?
When the Roman Emperor Constantine (latin) wanted to make Christianity palatable to Romans he dressed it in themes that resonated with Latin Roman culture, themes Latin Roman culture was loath to give up; for example images of the Roman sun-god (sun rays) were borrowed to represent ‘God’, worship instituted upon the venerable day of sun worship became the Catholic venerable day of the sun (in latin) – God worship day. The façade of Christ’s birth celebration was set upon Roman winter-solstice celebrations (we don’t actually know what Jesus’ birthday was, Dec 25 is a merely a solstice tradition). The association of Easter (Astarte) and her fertility celebrations (bunnies and eggs) with passover are all examples of taking what Christ provided seen through a culturally miopic lens. As a consequence intractable elements of Latin paganism have diminished the original faith of Messiah and his apostolic followers.
What is the purpose of seeing theology through any particular cultural lens – and is it valid to do this?
Let me ask another way:
If theology is universal – shouldn’t it be something more than any particular culture? If we advocate for a theology through through a particular culture’s lens aren’t we intentionally tainting our view and study of God with an element that is foreign to the character of God (but not man)? It sounds like we’re disguising humanism as Christianity. How can we be sure we are seeing divine substance rather than mere attributes of fallen man?
Rather, if the purpose is to pursue something universal shouldn’t we rid it of its decidedly universal elements? For example, to off-set the influence of the perspectives of non-Latino Europeans, shouldn’t we seek to identify how non-Latino Europeans culture has seeped into theology, the excise it? To be fair then, we should also identify how the Latino (including Hispanic) perspective has seeped into theology and excise it too.
You cite the Hispanic affliction of poverty as an example of a component of this cultural lens you advocate for yet poverty is neither an attribute of God the father nor God the son, nor is it specific to Hispanic culture. Poverty is a universal thing, and should be seen as such. (Any non-Hispanic who has lived a faith through abysmal (material) poverty and come out the other side is offended by the suggestion that to appreciate this universal view of the Gospel we need to adopt some specific cultural perspective) [James 2:5] instructs us not to look at material possessions as any type of gauge of wealth, but James’s perspective is universal not cultural.
I challenge you on this for two reasons – the danger of Humanism tainting theology and hence faith is very real. Culture, as you effectively point out in this post is a attribute of fallen man not God because it represents man’s fallen predications. So why would we risk this danger by pursuing something non-universal?
You may want to take some time to read some of these books, see what they say, see how their differing worldviews and experiences help them see God from a different angle and how you might learn from them, and then you’ll have your answer. If you’re unwilling to do that, or unwilling to do so with the posture of a learner, then nothing I can say here will matter. It doesn’t make sense for me to go over this with you time and time again unless you’re willing to engage marginalized theologies yourself.
Signal to noise ratio, my friend – not all words, all books are of equal worth. We all read what we deem worth-while in an effort to reduce the noise and best interpret the signal in the marketplace of ideas. Besides it wasn’t the book whose accountability I was questioning but the blog. If there is a rationalization for abandoning divine universality in favour of fallen humanity in our perspective, it would be very nice to see.
This post all but says a better way to see theology is to constrain it through the eyes of a particular culture. This injects humanism into theology but it also forces a person to adopt an approach which at least ignores theology’s universal nature, at best abandons it. I’m sure there are many books that advance this worldly view (this being one).
However if we suppose that theology is the study of God or divinity (which is universal) the suggestion to look to culture begs the question is dethroning universality for the sake of glimpsing the perspective of a particular humanity really the best way to understand God (or is the suggestion to dethrone God in favour of man simply being provoked to advance debate)?
I suppose one could argue the only way to approach a study of something universal is to stitch together the particular perspectives of defective observers into something aggregate and hope that the aggregate provides a reasonable facsimile of the original; except that Plato’s Allegory of the Cave suggests that it is possible to grasp the original apart from the facsimile. From a Christian perspective then, shouldn’t we seek to see God through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, rather than something worldly (or is that just not possible)?
This argument does not interest me (in fact, to save you time, know that I’m not even reading your comments). Either read books by those who are often ignored to see what you might learn or do not. I have no interest in trying to convince you to change your mind.
Those who are ignored outnumber those who are not – I’m afraid.
In fact, I do try read those who are ignored (almost exclusively). I just don’t happen to do it in in a racist way.
Sorry – Ill qualify that – I meant in a way that selects some and disregards others.
lol, racist
verses. a racist agnostic way — and yes there is a difference.
.. should have read ‘race agnostic’ … (also assuming culture and race to be related).